


Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat

by tohoshinki



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 11:13:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20173303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tohoshinki/pseuds/tohoshinki
Summary: Long may he reign.





	Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat

The first time he comes back, Mollymauk is just as surprised as anyone else to be breathing the fresh air.

That is, if it had been air that greeted him the first time he draws breath.

Wherever he’s found himself, the soil is still soft, freshly turned and fragrant from what probably was his burial. The grave is a glorified ditch, most likely done out of courtesy more so than out of caring for the recently deceased. But for that, he is thankful as breaking out of a pine box would have him facing another set of challenges entirely. His lungs become soil, his eyes, his ears, his fingernails, as every ounce of strength left in his newly not-so-dead body fights toward the direction that he can only assume is the surface. Surviving is what he would call it later, when desperation and panic overtakes this body because he can’t _possibly_ be that far down-

And then there is light.

The top of his head breaks the surface, then his horns like impromptu shovels, then his eyes are peering up out of the turned earth. Calling it crude would have been kind as Molly was just grateful that there had not been anyone else around to witness his macabre resurrection. He uses the base of an aged tree for leverage, wrapping one arm and then the other around its trunk that crumbles under his touch. His torso is quick to follow, legs kicking and the rest of the dirt falls back into place behind him. Once freed, Molly notices another mound of earth. Marked by a few mismatched stones not ten feet away, resembling what his had probably been minutes before, a sigh leaves his lips.

_Poor fucker never even had a chance, whoever he was._

There is some comfort for him in the silence of the wood now, the air still and stagnant as Molly recalls how lungs are meant to behave. The tree he’s leant against is the strongest thing about him now, scarlet eyes still bleary from death. Weariness takes him under the warmth of the midday sun that parts the canopy above him, muddling any semblance of coherent thought. He was certain this body was his before and truthfully, that would be the only thing he was sure of until his second death.

That day will come sooner than he can plan for.

But he takes inventory all the same- two somewhat working eyes, horns that curve behind his head, dark and impossibly long violet hair, clawed fingertips. Ten fingers, ten toes, a tail matching the purply hues of his skin. The scars hidden beneath the presently dirt stained tunic was an interesting touch, in straight lines overlapping on his neck, chest, and forearms. If they had been fresher, Molly had half a mind to think that was how he met his end. A hollow echo in his chest has him guessing otherwise.

This would not be the first time the not knowing would get to him, nor would it be the last. Being unsure of yourself was one thing- a future Molly would argue that living this life would require you to possess a willingness to adapt, to be ever changing so much so that you would be lucky to know the name of person you were yesterday. But no one had the courtesy to so much as leave him with a name.

“Mollymauk” would be a name he finds later, tucked away in the deeper recesses of his brain and coined by another off raspy whispers of “empty, empty.” A piece of paper had the power to take him, strange and afraid, to MT and later to someone bigger sealed with nothing more than the curves of an inked quill. That was a kind of magic Molly found himself quite keen on learning. 

But for now, he would do better to concern himself with one thing and one thing only- he was alive again.

Two years that pass in the blink of an eye follow his name day.

The unknown tiefling borne of the earth adopts the moniker of a one Mollymauk Tealeaf and flourishes into himself. Where things were once hard, his acquired circus family makes things easy. Gustav, Bosun, Toya, Kylre, Mona, Yuli, Desmond, Orna, Yasha- the names that would brand themselves deeply into Molly’s warming heart. He becomes smiles and sleights of hand, able to produce a tarot card for whatever the occasion may be in brightly colored clothing and all manner of bells and baubles dangling from his horns. They are carefully chosen and displayed, as a hunter chooses his prize, but their significance Molly will never tell. There is a lot that Molly never tells and if it bothers anyone, he is none the wiser to it.

It is a fateful day that he meets the rest of what is to become the Mighty Nein.

And it isn’t so much what they did or what they said, though Molly distinctly remembers there being zombies involved at some point. It’s the jovial aura that emanates from the ragtag group, the jingle of coins at their waists, they way that they just seem like there’s no _way_ all these different people were meant to be travelling together _intentionally-_

He watches as the smallest figure returns a shortsword to belt at her hip, considering his waning sense of self preservation for the briefest moment before Yasha presses her palm into the small of his back. And Molly continues to walk forward.

Fjord. Beau. Jester. Nott. Caleb.

Caleb.

Caleb Widogast, he learns, committing the name to memory by the time it leaves its owner’s lips. The name lingers, the same way the man does, flitting in and out of Mollymauk’s peripheral. Caleb is there when the blue tiefling sitting at the table drops two copper pieces into Molly’s open palm and the light catches his hair in the same tone as glittering coins before they disappear from sight. Blue eyes scan his hands with each pull of a tarot card from his sleeve; the Silver Dragon. It takes one card to be turned face up for Molly to diffuse Caleb from his suspicions that the pair of he and Yasha are thieves. The Anvil. The second card gets the slightest muscle above his eyebrow to quirk and Molly’s crimson eyes gleam. The Serpent. As Caleb brings smudged hands to his face, scratching at the stubble along his jaw noncommittally, Molly knows he’s got him.

He barely listens to the excitable tiefling’s praises, or even her follow up question as the Eye is pulled, because just as she, Molly had found someone he hadn’t known he was looking for.

Many days come to pass that Mollymauk finds himself splayed across Caleb’s lap as the latter reads, as he plans, as goes about using as much free time that is granted to them gazing in each other’s eyes. Molly would have gagged if it wasn’t the happiest he had been since before he crawled out of the ground. And he couldn’t remember being that happy to before then anyway. Bandaged fingers toy idly with the jewelry dangling from the divots along his horns and its peaceful as for once they aren’t bothered with fiddling with threads or bits and bobs for spellcasting.

They exchange knowledge, they exchange pasts, they exchange lazy, upside down kisses over midnight watches and the moon. He’ll pull cards when they’re together sometimes, handing them one by one to Caleb until his deck is depleted. And each time Caleb tries to ask him how a 78 card reading could possibly work-

_But be _serious _this time, Mollymauk._

_Caleb, its simple really. It’s in the _order_ of the cards, naturally-- _

And each time, Molly pulls the Moon from the messy pile of cards Caleb is attempting to straighten between fumbling fingers.

_Those cards are marked, Mollymauk._

_Being here with you is too good to be true. _He presses a kiss to Caleb’s forehead. _A misunderstanding, the reality of which would render me absolutely heartbroken. Sound about right?_

_Molly, you know that’s not-_

He tilts Caleb’s chin upwards with a knuckle, lips silencing him chastely.

_Moonlight brings clarity. Understanding. Allow intuition to be your guide._

_Is this the one you finally charge me for?_

_Depends. What’ll you give me for it?_

_Anything you ask._

And as Mollymauk usually is, he is right, and things are far too good to last. 

_An example it is._

The blow is swift as Molly falls to the feet of the behemoth of a man glowering above him. A glaive is raised with ease above his head, less a weapon and more an extension of Lorenzo’s arm. With the blood already beginning to choke him, Molly’s final breath is used spitting in the face of the man that would claim his second death, wiping the remaining trickle of saliva obscenely across his cheek.

_With blood._

A familiar ache overtakes his body again, the same ache that lulled him to sleep under the sun more than two years before then. He would have barely noticed the glaive entering his chest if not for the crack of his ribcage shattering beneath its force. The romantic in him would swear up and down that he saw the twinge in Caleb’s face as it happened; after everything, Caleb’s presence can’t seem to leave him. But the truth is that it didn’t.

Unblinking, like the nine tattooed across his body, his eyes never shut. 

**Author's Note:**

> I've been having a lot of feelings about Molly in general and thinking about Caleb being soft with him only makes things worse. Be kind to me.  
I'm making a playlist for Molly, too, because of course I am. Feel free to have a listen if you like. 
> 
> http://spoti.fi/2Tgy7oC


End file.
